October 17, 2010

Cupboard Art

It's Kentuck Weekend and we spent the day today. There was so much cool art there, ranging from two-dimensional photographs, paintings and collages on various media, to 3-dimensional items made from, well, various media.

If you have no idea what I am talking about, the Kentuck Festival is an annual festival of folk art held in Northport each October for the past 39 years. It is a two-day juried art festival that attracts 30,000-plus visitors.

The idea was to walk around the park and see as many of the 250-or-so booths before deciding what to buy.

My thoughts these days center around the artistic value of practical objects in the kitchen and I found many kindred spirits.

First I saw this lamp shade from Cooper-Stratton Designs, made from a colander and measuring spoons. Funky, colorful, contemporary art craft -- New Orleans style. Pretty cool.

Then this little guy, made from an old can of Planter's Mixed Nuts, and various other stuff, from Anthony Pack, urban folk artist. Also very cool.

But the one I really could not resist was this whimsical Raven on an Egg Beater by Michigan artist Mark Orr of Scavenger Art. We have this very egg beater in the Cupboard right now, and I never thought of it in this way before. The key-holding raven on top symbolizes the opening of doors and the welcoming of positive change into our lives and the egg relates to new beginnings. How extremely cool. I bought it on the spot and carried it around the park for several hours.

Here it is in the Cupboard already, next to it's inspiration, the bakelite red handled rotary egg beater.

We also bought some photographs and posters, from local Alabama artists. They will adorn Mary's Cupboard, and maybe inspire you to do more with our consigned objects than cook with them.

Comments

Very cool...thanks for sharing the meaning behind the Raven eggbeater. I love the "little Gremlin" from Anthony. I still need to get out to visit you...hoping for this w/e as I have time off for my 11 year Anniversary, and we will be traveling around. Be well.